For the first time since 1928, Olympics will feature Men’s Hockey without India. It’s nothing less than shame as this was the only event that fetched Gold medals for us (8 medals in all). It started in 1928 at Amsterdam when India beat Holland 3-0 to win its first Olympic Gold Medal. From that medal started the golden era of Indian Hockey and India won 6 consecutive Gold medals (between 1928-1956), where India put 178 goals and conceded only 7 goals. This golden ended in Rome Olympics in 1960, when India Lost to Pakistan 0-1. Apart from 1928-1956 Olympics, India won 2 more Gold Medals at Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and Moscow Olympics 1980.

Bad politics and ego by some of the members have taken the toll and resulting in the fact that India isn’t in the top 12 teams that qualified for the match. Well, probably when Indian politician get time from their parliament fights and cat-dog fight they can think about sports. Cricket too has over shadowed the development of other games. It’s high time we stop giving too much importance to cricket and raise our voice to support other sports and sportsman so that we can bring glory to our country else it will shame for us to say a country with 1.25 billion people cannot fetch a medal!

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